The war drama and political thriller is based on a four year-old idea by Sørensen of making ‘something’ about Norwegian soldiers based in Afghanistan’. Co-writers are Mette Marit Bøstad and Stephen Uhlander.
Briseid who collaborated with Sørensen on the 2012 show The Half Brother – also penned by Bølstad - told nordiskfilmogtvfond.com about the genesis of the project: “Nobel evolved naturally during the post-production of The Half Brother due to a shared wish for a continued collaboration. I asked Per-Olav what his dream project was. The answer in short was a contemporary story depicting the impact of war. His thoughts were presented to Mette who then together with Stephen created the pitch which Nobel is based on. I presented the project to NRK who decided to commission it. I have spent the last year getting the financing in place for the green light and am now very much looking forward to production start.”
Sørensen outlined to nordiskfilmogtvfond.com the main storyline: “Nobel focuses on Erling Riiser (Aksel Hennie), a Norwegian soldier in the Special Forces (FSK). He and his platoon are in action in Afghanistan and orders given by NATO and the Norwegian Foreign Office. Then Erling and his soldier-friends are suddenly involved in a tricky political conspiracy. This has great impact on his life, his family and also in the end, Norway as a nation."
Other key cast members include Anders Danielsen Lie (Oslo, August 31st), Tuva Novotny (Crimes of Passion), Christian Rubeck (The Heavy Water War), Danica Curcic (Silent Heart) and Odd-Magnus Williamson (Kon-Tiki).
The NOK68 million (€7.9m) TV show has received backing from the Norwegian Film Institute and has been pre-sold to SVT and RUV so far. According to Briseid DRG that handles international sales beyond Nordics has already secured a few international pre-sales.
The ten-week shoot in in Oslo starting next month will be followed by three weeks in Prague in August and four weeks in Morocco in September. The premiere on NRK is set for 2016.